It's All In the Details...
Or how did I miss this for the last 2 years?
Ed. notes: I apologize if my posts are not particularly regular—there’s a old guy joke there—but between finishing country songs and my stories about growing up in suburbia in the 60s with a talking cat, this Substack sometimes get short shrift.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before…
Occasionally, one finds that shooting from the hips isn’t the best way to proceed.
Examples abound.
We had our water heater replaced recently. This wasn’t necessarily because it was going bad, though it was, by my estimation, at least 15 years old. Nor that it was undersized, though an argument could be made that it was—back to back showers were an iffy proposition. No, it was because it was installed improperly, meaning it did not meet code by the good folks here in Mesa. Problems were many: the drain and relief were pressed against the back wall of the closet, in which it was installed, such that it was nearly impossible to drain and therefore maintain. And if the relief lifted, it would blast hot water all over the back of the closet because it was not piped to anywhere. Not good. Also, it was not wired correctly.
220 volt power connections should be in a junction box not exposed like this. (And this is one of two!) Multiple pigtails, as they’re called, are not good. It’s an electrocution waiting to happen. Or a fire.
Remember this is in a closet!
And behind it, was the remnants of the old water heating system; a hydronic system that was abandoned rather than replaced. (You can see parts of it in the above picture.) Good times. So, we bit the bullet and had a company that specializes in water heaters and the like take out the two old ones and put in a new one that won’t destroy the house. Laugh if you must, but it happens.
Life is in the details.
In the world of music and recording, a good example, for those of you, like me, who are dinosaurs and still record individual tracks with instruments—versus using a DAW—is keeping a fact sheet that notes outboard gear used, levels, which instruments if you own more than one (think guitars), tunings, what you were thinking, etc.
But back in the 80s, recording on my Tascam 244, I never did, and now all I have are memories of sitting on the floor of our small apartment on the west side of Queen Anne Hill going from one song to the next. Most frustrating is there are songs I no longer know how to play. I’ve resisted trying to reconstruct them because it’s possible I won’t be able to. A serious bummer, man! All that’s left is the recordings themselves, but at least there’s that.
So what am I saying here?
Chart out your songs while you can because you will forget if too many years go by between your playing them.
The other place it matters, as far as creating is concerned—which for me is writing my stories—is keeping track of your characters. I have a lot of them after 6 Monk Buttman books, an end of the world book, a mashup of westerns, Greek gods, and fantasy book, and my latest: a semi-memoir about life in the suburban 60s that includes a rather unctuous talking cat. That’s more than a handful.
I have to keep notes people!
Now it’s possible that some writers can keep it all in their head; I doubt it, and at this point with word processors you can hit the search/find feature, but how is that different from having notes(?), and at some point you’ll hit the wall and write it all down and then forget to take it with you when you go where it’s warm and sunny—the perfect weather in which to isolate and write—and frustrated by your ineptitude, just wing it.
Minus that, continuity is vital as however many readers/fans you may have, they will notice when you go off script with your characters, i. e. Monk is a guy, right? And on page—insert page number here—in book—insert book number here—it says she. Did I miss something?
No, that would be the editor, which is me, which is semi-deflating given how much work editing is and how easy it is for mistakes to get overlooked. But we endeavor to persevere.
And finally:
Ok, Dave, what’s with the shoes/slippers at the top?
Attention to detail!
First a little history. I’ve had these open toed slippers for at least 2 years; bought them for my palatial estate rather than closed ones—too hot for my sensitive feet. Oddly, the left foot slips off quite often (insert slipper joke here), and it bothered me, but weirdly not enough for me to take a more expansive dive into why. That occurred recently when I took a close look at the two of them next to one another—as you see it in the photo at the top of this deeply engrossing post.
Turns out they’re not the same size!
At this point you may ask: “Well how did you not notice this when you bought them, Dave?”
Excellent question. And despite our new national pastime of never admitting making a mistake at anytime ever in anything we’ve ever done, I have a totally unsatisfying answer: I didn’t look that closely. They were together on the shelf at Famous Footwear and I noticed them as I was going to the register to pay for the sneakers I went there for and made an impulse buy. Did not bother to examine them closely.
Pretty straight forward; a mistake anyone would make back when people still made mistakes. Fortunately, things are different now.
Attention to detail.
Sadly, because I’m frugal—read cheap—I plan on wearing these till they’re worn out no matter how frustrating it is that the left one—which is too big— continues to slip off!
On the plus side, that shouldn’t be too much longer, and will end this long national nightmare till the next one. So, please, learn from my mistake.
On to more prosaic matters…
Since I have a new album out, I thought I’d share another one of its songs. This one is titled In This World, and concerns itself with love and what we tell each other and how much or how little we choose to believe and whether any of that matters beyond our desire that it be the one we want.
Enjoy.
©2024 David William Pearce